SAVE, BRODEUR! Martin Brodeur stops Switzerland's Martin Pluss in a shootout to lead Canada to a 3-2 victory yesterday.AP

VANCOUVER — Inside the Creekside Lounge on Howe Street, the expressions up and down the bar were eclectic and they spoke volumes: surprise. Shock. A little anger. A little more trepidation.

And a whole lot of fear.

Canada and Switzerland had played 60 minutes of deadlocked hockey. They had played five minutes of overtime. All square at 2-2. Now, shockingly, stunningly, Canada — the presumptive favorite in this Olympic hockey competition, and the object of obsession for 33 million Canadians — would need to go to a shootout to survive a second-round game that everyone believed would be nothing more than a lark.

“We had so many opportunities,” Sidney Crosby would soon lament, back at Canada Hockey Place, “and they just wouldn’t let us take advantage of them.”

And so now, at Creekside and at the Keg and at Earl’s and in Robson Square and at every gathering place in Vancouver and in all the provinces, there would be this excruciating test of will and courage and every stomach lining in all of Canada. Losing this game wouldn’t eliminate Canada, but it would remove the sheen of invincibility it had carried into this tournament.

And three rounds’ worth of shootout later, it still was tied.

And a collective knot still bound up a nation’s gizzard.

Jonas Hiller had been brilliant in goal for Switzerland, and though Martin Brodeur hadn’t been awful, he had been victimized by two hard-luck goals that had turned an early 2-0 advantage into a 2-2 tie, into this excruciating shootout. And beyond.

But Crosby gave the Canadians their first opportunity to cheer in what felt like hours, going low on Hiller, scoring in the fourth round of the shootout, putting the hosts up 3-2. So one future Hall of Famer had delivered for the Canadians, as 18,000 people inside the arena exploded and millions of others in saloons and living rooms and restaurants exhaled.

Now it was Brodeur’s turn. He had been brilliant across the first three rounds, and he is a certain soon-as-he’s eligible Hall of Famer. But the Canadians had shut out Norway behind home-towner Roberto Luongo in their opener against Norway, and there would be second-guessing from Moose Jaw to Montreal if Brodeur hadn’t carried the day.

But just when it seemed Martin Bruss had him beat, Brodeur made the kind of save Devils fans have seen for 16 years, stoning Bruss, ending the Swiss bid for the upset of the Olympics, and delivering the Canadians at last, 3-2.

That sound you heard? It may have seemed like a roar.

But it was really a sigh of relief.

“They played a great game, and it’s proof that anyone in this competition can beat you if they play at a certain level and you aren’t prepared to be at your best,” Brodeur said. “I thought we were good, too. But they were terrific. We feel good to have won this game.”